1 Peso

The Banco Español de Puerto Rico was one of two privileged colonial banks operating under Spanish charter in the Caribbean during the final decade of Spanish rule. This 1895 issue came at a moment of genuine political instability — the Cuban insurrection had reignited the previous year, and nervousness about Spain's grip on its remaining American colonies was already affecting colonial credit. The bank's notes circulated alongside Spanish Treasury obligations and were not always warmly received by a commercial class that had long preferred hard currency.

Pedro Maura's Madrid workshop handled engraving for several Spanish colonial issues of this period. Puerto Rico reverted to U.S. administration in 1898, and the bank's outstanding notes were subsequently subject to redemption under American monetary arrangements — survivors of that transition are not common.